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Show UNDERGRADUATES AND THE ACCIDENT PROBLEM Aggressive "safe-driving" campaigns are being inaugurated by students of a number of American universities and colleges. ,The old idea of the average college boy, which painted him as a rip-roaring irresponsible, driving his flashy roadster at incredible in-credible speed while one arm encircled a blonde and one held a flask, was doubtless much exaggerated but it remains a statistical truth that the most dangerous drivers are those in their late teens and early twenties. If the menace of automobile automo-bile accidents can be brought home to these drives we will have taken an important step in curing thhe problem. One of the campaigns is being conducted at Yale, where the Yale News, as1 distinguished an undergraduate newspaper as the country has, has issued a pledge for students to sign. Signers of the 'pleddge a.s'ree to follow such simple, obvious, and yet vitally essential practices as to. drive always at moderate moder-ate speeds, never to pass on hills or curves, to stop at stop signs and not "jump" traffic lights, and to be fair to all other drivers. Any driver, young, middleaged or old, who follows these rules has relatively small chance of becoming involved in a major automobile accident, due to his own carelessness. It would be a great thing for the nation if every university saw the inauguration of such a campaign. During the last two years we have killed more than 70,000 people in automobile v .nrrirlpnfs. and macticallv everv one of those accidents waspre- ventable. In every one of them human error, human failings, human irresponsibility, 'were the greatest contributing factors. The university students who are fighting a,uto accidents are setting sett-ing an example that should be emulated not only by their fellows, fel-lows, but by their elders. |
